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Connors receives mentoring award

By CATHY WILDE

“Dr. Connors has consistently demonstrated his investment in my success and has provided numerous opportunities that encouraged me to stretch my potential.”

Ronda Dearing, senior research scientist

Research Institute on Addictions

Gerard Connors

Gerard Connors, senior research scientist and former director of
UB’s Research Institute on Addictions, has been recognized
for his exemplary mentorship of promising scientists with a
national award from the American Psychological Association’s
Society of Addiction Psychology.

Connors received the Distinguished Career Contributions to
Education and Training Award last month at the 2013 annual APA
conference.

A recognized expert in the study of alcohol and drug abuse and
treatment, Connors joined the RIA in 1987 and served as director
from 1998 to 2011.

Kenneth Leonard, current RIA director, nominated Connors for the
award, citing the effective and lasting impact of his mentorship on
graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and emerging
scientists.

“Dr. Connors is unique among mentors in that his
contributions to the mentor-mentee relationship are dynamic and
often continue across many career stages,” Leonard says.
“His meaningful counsel has been instrumental to our
postdoctoral fellows in their transitions to professional careers,
and has been valuable to junior and more established scientists as
well.”

In addition to providing individual guidance to scientists at
RIA, Connors served for 12 years as co-training director with R.
Lorraine Collins for RIA’s postdoctoral training program
grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
(NIAAA)—a division of the National Institutes of
Health—which fostered the development of more than 20
postdoctoral research fellows.

Ronda Dearing, senior research scientist at RIA, was mentored by
Connors in the postdoctoral training program and praises his
knowledge, experience and generosity with his time and
resources.

“From the time that I began as a new postdoctoral fellow,
Dr. Connors treated me as a valued colleague,” Dearing says.
“Over the ensuing years, he has facilitated my professional
development with gentle guidance and respect. Dr. Connors has
consistently demonstrated his investment in my success and has
provided numerous opportunities that encouraged me to stretch my
potential.”

Connors has made multiple important contributions to the field
of addictions research, particularly in developing new
interventions for alcohol dependence, characterizing relapse
following alcohol treatment and understanding the role of
spirituality and therapeutic alliance as related to treatment and
treatment outcomes. He has received more than $10 million in
funding from the NIH and the NIAAA.

His research findings have been published in numerous scholarly
journals, including Addiction, Alcoholism: Clinical and
Experimental Research, Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, and Psychology
of Addictive Behaviors, among others. He also is co-author of
several books, including “Substance Abuse Treatment and the
Stages of Change.”

A member of the APA, Connors is a fellow of the APA’s
Society of Clinical Psychology and Society of Addiction Psychology.
He also is a member of the Research Society on Alcoholism, the
College on Problems of Drug Dependence and the Association for
Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.